Page 10 of The Family Cross

NANA MAMA ADJUSTED HER glasses. She read what she’d written so far, trying to get the missing word to come to her.

Is it narrative? No, that isn’t it.

She reread the sentence fragment on the page, believing her train of thought would progress again as it had just moments before.

It’s right there on the tip of my tongue. Something like correct? Well, Gaines is correct. But it’s not that… it’s more like…

Nana Mama blinked, grasping for the word that seemed just out of reach. She set her pen down, knowing from past experience that she should do something else and let her subconscious work things out.

She got to her feet and headed back outside to finish preparing the garden beds. It had been the very first thing she’d written on her list of goals that morning, and she was determined to see the task done.

Halfway to the back door, she noticed an odd sensation in her right hand. The sensation grew as she walked, not prickly, not fiery, not unpleasant, just a buzzing feeling that seemed to prance around and through her fingers, palm, and wrist.

Nana Mama reached for the doorknob, then paused to rub the tingling in her right wrist, wondering whether she’d overdone it hand-turning all that wet soil earlier. Is it arthritis? Or just too much for my tendons?

The old woman decided she’d just done too much and started to turn back. Then she remembered she’d left her hat and gloves out on the railing. She’d just grab those and bring them inside.

Nana Mama opened the back door. The buzzing in her hand was gone. That was good. She stepped out onto the stoop, and the screen door swung shut behind her.

Her gardening gloves were right there where she’d left them. But where was her hat? She looked over the rail and saw it lying on the brick patio below.

Sighing, Regina went to the steps. She made sure she had a good hold of the rail with her left hand, because the buzzing had started again in her right. Her upper lip tightened as she swung out her foot, then she lost her balance.

Her knee buckled.

Nana Mama toppled sideways. She saw the patio coming and hit the bricks hard before she plunged dark and deep, beyond all memory, words, or thoughts.

10

ALI CROSS WALKED HOME from the bus, enjoying the sunny weather after all the rain and the thunderstorms that had rattled his bedroom windows the night before. He had big tests coming up but he was prepared already.

When he realized that meant more free time, he had an exciting idea. He could ride his mountain bike this afternoon.

Ali had not been out on his bike since late last fall, and he quickened his pace, thinking about having a snack with Nana Mama before going out for his ride. Maybe he’d go down Capitol Hill and do part of the bridle path on the National Mall.

He loved that idea and started to trot, holding tight to the shoulder straps of his backpack and thinking it might be time to ask his dad if they could go somewhere with single-track trails and jumps, someplace where he could improve his mountain-biking skills and learn to handle terrain trickier than sidewalks and bridle paths.

When Ali reached his home on Fifth Street, he bounded up the front steps. He’d change into his biking gear, eat a snack, then fetch his bike from the shed in the backyard. He used his key to open the front door and entered, calling, “I’m home, Nana!”

He heard no reply after shutting the door, which was unusual. He didn’t remember his great-grandmother mentioning any appointments that afternoon—Nana kept those kinds of things noted and organized on a chalkboard calendar on the wall by the doorway to the kitchen. Before he left for school, he’d seen that she had an appointment with her doctor today, but that was in the morning, and there was nothing on the calendar after that.

Maybe she’s out back, he thought as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. He struggled into his biking gear, which barely fit. I must have grown over the winter.

He dug out his bike shoes, grabbed his phone, and went bounding back down the stairs into the front hall. He got his helmet from the closet and called out again. “Nana? You here?”

Still no answer. She has to be out back. It’s, like, gardening season, right?

He stopped in the kitchen, got a water bottle, and filled it, then carried his gear down the hall to the back door, which was ajar, moving in the breeze coming through the screen door.

“Nana?” he called as he pushed the screen door open.

He stepped onto the landing, looked down the stairs, and saw his great-grandmother lying on her belly, unmoving, on the bricks below the lowest riser, her head turned to the left. A tsunami of reactions, emotions, and thoughts hit Ali at once, almost swamping his ability to act.

Then his sheer love for the woman took over. Nana Mama had helped raise him. She was one of his favorite people. She had always been there for him.

Ali dropped his things and moved fast down the stairs. There was blood on the bricks around Nana Mama’s head, blood was seeping out of her mouth, and something was wrong with her right arm.

He swallowed, went to his knees, and put one hand gently on her neck and the other in front of her nose.